


V-Day

by toli-a (togina)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: 1940s, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Comfort/Angst, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 12:33:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7758037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togina/pseuds/toli-a
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They caught Steve for lying on his enlistment forms after his fifth try, so Bucky shipped off to Italy while they shipped Steve off to jail. But that's fine, now that Bucky's home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	V-Day

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty sure this prompt was, "What if the whole Captain America thing didn't happen to Steve?" And people have gone really interesting directions with pre-serum Steve and the 1940s, but I just figured he'd keep trying to enlist until he went to jail, and then there'd be no one to save Bucky from the Hydra plant.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Bucky swore, hands shaking and thin as a subway rail.  “Only you would organize from inside a goddamn prison to help support the war, Rogers.”

Steve sneezed, then rubbed his dripping nose with his oversized prison-issued shirt, both of them waiting for the superintendent at Riker’s to sign his release.  “You said you needed socks,” he shrugged, then waved at a burly man with a thug’s face and a pair of knitting needles in his hands.  “We all got to do something.”

“One day someone is going to take a knitting needle to your fool head, Steve, and I’m gonna –”  Bucky stopped in the middle of the sentence, mouth flattening out to a thin line, hands curling around the corners of the nearest table.  He looked like he was having an asthma attack.

Steve fidgeted for a moment, then darted away from his assigned prison guard and toward the friend he hadn’t seen in two years — thought he might never see again, until the Allies liberated Italy and found the 107th more dead than alive — wrapping his arms around Bucky and squeezing too hard.  “Breathe, you jerk,” he whispered, because Bucky sounded like Geraldine Marie down the block, when you put her in an elevator and she panicked about the walls.

“I knew you’d wind up in prison,” Bucky wheezed, prying his fingers loose from the table and clutching at Steve.  “Punk.”

Someone to their right coughed politely.  “You’re free to go now, Rogers.  Your friend here took care of the fine.”  The prison guard frowned at them, then brightened a little.  “And thanks for the socks.  Winter is hell, working here.”

“Jiminy cricket,” Bucky muttered, but shook hands with the guard and practically dragged Steve away.

“They say the war’s ending,” Steve said, looking out of place on the train home, watching the flowers bloom in people’s windows, watching Bucky out of the corner of his eye.

Bucky flinched.  “Guess so.”  He fidgeted with a fold in the loose fabric of his dress slacks, rubbed his fingers against the weave.  “We still got a home, punk, or did you turn that into an ammunition factory?”

“Dorothea kept it up,” Steve told him, rolling his eyes.  “Dusted, and everything.  If she heard you were coming home, there might even be lasagna waiting on the table.”

“I wouldn't know,” Bucky grumbled, but he’d perked up at the thought of Thea’s lasagna.  “Since I came straight from the troop ship to the prison yard. Did they arrest you for being an idiot, or for wanting to be from _Jersey_?”

“Shut up.”  Steve elbowed Bucky gently in the ribs, then laced his fingers together so that he couldn’t fold them over Bucky’s shaking hands.  “You want to stop for a soda, before we get home?”

Bucky shook his head.  “Nah.”  Pushed his hair out of his eyes, tilted his head down and peered at Steve.  “I just wanna get home.”

 

Steve captured Bucky’s hands as soon as they made it through their door, the apartment smelling like lasagna and musty air.  “You’re okay,” he whispered, thinking of a moment years before, dirt from his Ma’s grave in the creases of his palms, Bucky’s hand steady on his shoulder, his words steady through Steve’s tears.  “You’re okay.”

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed, hunching forward until he could smash his face into Steve’s prison-short, greasy hair.  “I’m okay.”  His voice cracked on the last word, and Steve could feel the tears dampen Bucky’s exhale.

But that was all right.  They would both be all right, now that Bucky was home.


End file.
